No. 1326: The winners

Charles Seaton reports: On the pattern of Full fathom five they father lies: His aqualung was the wrong size competitors were asked to 'improve' well- known single lines or couplets in a like spirit of fun.

Congratulations are in order this week to competitors for sending in over 600 couplets or quatrains and to prizewinners (and many others, too) for the diverting and sometimes hilarious additions to famous lines. (I hope, by the way, that none of you finds that a favourite poem has been maimed for life by one of these irreverent sallies.) The few less familiar lines among the winnere were, I felt, more than justified by the effective punch lines added to them. Single-line follow-ups turned out to be by far the most spirited entries, and this is reflected by the winners. The prize money gets spread around this week, with £2 going to each entry printed, and the award of the bonus bottle of Champagne Jules Mignon Brut (NV), pre- sented by Christopher Moorsom and Michael Alexander of the Chelsea Wharf Restaurant, Lots Rd, SW10 (351 0861) gives Patricia Stockbridge the chance for her own spot of revel.

My true love hath my heart and I have his; What clever stuff this transplant business is!

There was a sound of revelry by night; The Commons, sitting late, sat also tight.

(Patricia Stockbridge) Orpheus with his lute made trees Subject to Dutch Elm Disease. (Paul Griffin) It is a beauteous evening, calm and free; Why did you have to mention pregnancy?

(Poppy Pratt) No coward soul is mine, But please — not parsnip wine. (Noel Petty) When lovely woman stoops to folly With royal Andrew — gosh, the lolly!

(Martin Fagg) Lives of great men all remind us We can make our lives sublime, But, regretfully, you'll find us Watching telly half the time. (Peter Hadley) I leant upon a coppice gate And found it could not bear my weight.

(Joyce Johnson) Ethereal minstrel! Pilgrim of the sky! Why must you spatter all the passers-by?

(Fiona Pitt-Kethley) I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, It's the only place in Ireland for a decent cup of tea.

(Nicholas Hodgson) If I should die, think only this of me: He never made it to Gallipoli. (Roy Dean) Come into the garden, Maud — I can promise you won't be bored.

(John Stanley) The Harlot's Cry from Street to Street Shall weave Old England's winding Sheet, But worse for England's Weal than that Is Scargill in his silly Hat. (Adam Khan) And the long labours of the toilet cease, For Ex-Lax offers you a quick release.

Full nakedness! All joys are due to thee AIDS, sunburn, insect bites, to name but three.

(I.D.M. Morley) Beautiful Evelyn Hope is dead — She drove straight on when the lights were red.

(O. Smith) Miss Joan Hunter Dunn, Miss Joan Hunter Dunn, Take off your knickers and let's have some fun.

(Basil Ransome-Davies) When you are old and gray and full of sleep You do not need to bother counting sheep.

(D.A. Prince) My Mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun, More like two currants in a penny bun.

(Ginger Jones) Go, for they call you, shepherd, from the hill; Another darned hang-glider's had a spill.

(George Moor) Tell me not here, it needs not saying That you'll have lobster if I'm paying.

(J.C.M. Hepple) Busy old fool, unruly Sun, Just suppose the Argies won. (J.C. Causer) They told me, Heraclitus, they told me you were dead, But I just wondered who you were and what on earth you'd said. (Guy Nankin) A sweet disorder in the dress Suggests a bedroom in a mess. (Llewellin Berg) Under the greenwood tree Is seldom earwig-free. (Mary Holtby) Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade, On that flat tombstone grandmama was laid.

(Ralph Sadler) 'Try not the Pass!' the old man said; 'But bid a couple of Hearts instead.'

(Miss F. J. Tarrant) (The poets drawn upon are, in order: Sidney, Byron, Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Emily Brontë, Goldsmith, Longfellow, Hardy, Wordsworth, Yeats, Rupert Brooke, Tennyson, Blake, Pope, Donne, Browning, Betjeman, Yeats, Shakespeare, Arnold, Housman, Donne, Cory, Herrick, Shakespeare, Gray, Longfellow.)